JPL-Managed Rover Finds Possible ‘Biosignatures’ of Ancient Mars Life

This animation depicts water disappearing over time in the Martian river valley Neretva Vallis, where NASA’s Perseverance Mars takes the rock sample named “Sapphire Canyon” from a rock called “Cheyava Falls,” which was found in the “Bright Angel” formation. Full image details Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Mars rover built and managed by Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena collected a rock sample that contains what NASA officials are calling the strongest evidence yet of ancient life on the red planet, authorities said Wednesday.

The sample, which has been dubbed “Sapphire Canyon,” was collected last year by the Perseverance rover, and researchers say it contains potential biosignatures that could be evidence of life that once existed on the planet. NASA officials noted that the sample will still need to undergo more thorough research to verify the finding, which was first reported in a paper published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy called the find “the closest we have ever come to discovering life on Mars.”

“The identification of a potential biosignature on the red planet is a groundbreaking discovery, and one that will advance our understanding of Mars,” Duffy said in a statement. “NASA’s commitment to conducting Gold Standard Science will continue as we pursue our goal of putting American boots on Mars’ rocky soil.”

NASA officials said Perseverance collected the sample in July 2024 while exploring a rock formation known as Bright Angel, located in an ancient river valley that scientists say was carved by water in the planet’s Jezero Crater long ago.

According to NASA and JPL, the rover’s instruments determined that the formation’s rocks are made of clay and silt, which on Earth act as “excellent preservers of past microbial life.”

The sample collected by Perseverance contained what appeared to be colorful spots — possible remnants of microbial life. High-resolution images then detected “a distinct pattern of minerals” arranged in patterns described as leopard spots. Those spots carried the signatures of the iron-rich minerals vivianite and greigite.

“The combination of these minerals, which appear to have formed by electron-transfer reactions between the sediment and organic matter, is a potential fingerprint for microbial life, which would use these reactions to produce energy for growth,” according to NASA and JPL.

Officials noted, however, that those minerals could also be generated “abiotically, or without the presence of life,” but the particular rocks at Bright Angel do not show evidence that they were exposed to the conditions that would have led to such generation.

So while more research will be needed, the discovery was seen as a major advancement in the search for signs of previous life on the planet.

“Astrobiological claims, particularly those related to the potential discovery of past extraterrestrial life, require extraordinary evidence,” Katie Stack Morgan, Perseverance’s project scientist at JPL, said in a statement. “Getting such a significant finding as a potential biosignature on Mars into a peer-reviewed publication is a crucial step in the scientific process because it ensures the rigor, validity, and significance of our results. And while abiotic explanations for what we see at Bright Angel are less likely given the paper’s findings, we cannot rule them out.”

The Perseverance rover was launched in July 2020, and landed on Mars in February 2021 in the planet’s Jezero Crater — an area researchers believe was flooded with water more than 3.5 billion years ago.